The price is very steep, indeed
by bigedwards
Summary: When Kirk speaks, it's conversationally, all sly grins and cheeky winks. "One million in a week, or the boy's gonna go" he declares.  AU - McCoy/Spock/Kirk - Major character death


_**Okay, a few things. **_

_**One, I don't own Star Trek or any of its characters. Two, I don't own the lyrics The White Lies' song "The Price of Love". **_

_**So, basically, this fic needs some explaining. Whenever I listen to "The Price of Love" (if you haven't heard the song, it tells the story of a guy whose wife gets kidnapped and held for ransom), I imagine Kirk, Spock and McCoy as the people in the song. **_

_**This isn't a song fic, but all the lyrics are incorporated into the writing (like Easter eggs).**_

_**Warnings: OOC-ness, Major character death, angst …scary situations? Also slash! (don't like, don't read) And psycho Kirk, too! AU**_

_**I'm not that happy with this, but please read and review!**_

•

"_Don't lay a finger_-" Bones cuts himself off, choking on his own desperation.

The connection is fuzzy, and the picture on the screen jumps as a whoosh of static momentarily replaces Spock's lacerated face. When Bones can see again, Kirk has bent down into frame to mock him, as not just one finger, but all five, are slack around Spock's pale neck. Bones watches in horrified fascination as Kirk turns the Vulcan's tightening jaw toward him and kisses the crest of Spock's faintly green lips. The camera jerks down with a sickening lurch-

(Bones hisses to a shocked nurse on his right that Kirk must be filming with a damn ancient camcorder because he feels like it's Cloverfield all over again, _christ_, and could she hurry and tell that to someone because maybe it's important. When she gives him a dubious look, he swallows down a snarl of "What the hell do I know? I'm a doctor not a damn detective.")

-and fills the monitor in sick bay full of Spock's Starfleet-issued-black-pants leg. Kirk's hand has moved to rest possessively on Spock's thigh and as the entirety of the clinic watches he _squeezes_—

Bones swallows down bile, teeth gritting hard and veins practically popping.

The world on the monitor swirls again and all trace of Spock is obstructed by Kirk's boyishly handsome face. He's smiling in a way that screams of his insanity, and it makes Bones' knees weaken in fear.

When Kirk speaks, it's conversationally, all sly grins and cheeky winks.

"One million in a week, or the boy's gonna go" he declares.

(Bones suddenly and sickeningly remembers the night he and Spock cuddled next to each other on his bunk and watched the news broadcast about James Tiberius Kirk's latest kidnapping and subsequent murder. The woman reporter's hands had been shaking as they clutched the microphone and her cheeks were stained by mascara tears. Spock's eyes held a look of such unease that Bones' stomach had dropped and stayed somewhere around his feet for hours.)

The lights in sick bay seem to dim around McCoy's rapidly narrowing line of sight. He finds the art of breathing abruptly difficult to master.

"I'd kill you in a second!" he gasps.

Two nurses rush to catch Bones by the elbows before he completely falls to the ground. The linoleum is cool on his calves and he hears a grunt from one of the women struggling to hold his weight.

There is a sound from Kirk's lovely face on the screen that can vaguely be construed as a laugh.

"Yeah" he says. "I know."

•

Bones had won 800 thousand on a games show once, when he was younger and still was able to beat someone older than a girl scout in a foot race.

He offers that, knowing the money is not sufficient, but hoping…hoping. His voice cracks painfully on the radio transmission sent out into sub space.

•

Starfleet ships have descended upon the space station where McCoy has been deployed and he's standing in the middle of a hub of activity, officers scurrying around like demented mice on all sides of him.

Kirk, the vulpine enigma, appears to once again have outsmarted the cosmos' best and brightest. Kirk uses antiquated machinery, operating on radio frequencies that were abandoned years ago. He's utterly untraceable, like a damnable ghost who liked to kidnap people's husbands.

Kirk reestablishes a connection in a moment's time. The room hushes completely, except for the steady hum of computers and the tap-tap-tapping of fingers rapid on keys.

Bones' blood rushes in his ears as Kirk assures him that it's not enough to win Spock back.

Bones has always been proud, even as a boy, and he can remember the last time he wept in front of anyone, and that time was..._never_. But-

(McCoy's mind is a frenzy of _SpockSpockSpock_; their "courtship", the dancing at their wedding, their fingers entwined in a perfect mix of pale green and tan white on top of the bed sheets-_oh god_ how he loves him!)

-he lets his tears hit the floor, anguish contorting his face. The eyes of every Starfleet official are glued to him, and he knows all of them are thinking the whole situation is much better than any soap opera they'd ever seen.

Bones can hear the self satisfied smirk in Kirk's voice; he still says no.

Bones' fingers clench on the radio receiver. Kirk is no idiot; he knows-_he knows_—the kind of salary McCoy exists on.

(The woman reporter's voice echoing in his mind from that night so long ago _"It's almost as if he picks all his victims just because he knows they can't pay up."_)

"C'mon, man!" Bones explodes.

A rookie officer to Bones' right jumps in surprise. When their eyes meet, the officer gives him such a pitying look it sets Bones' blood on fire.

"Give me some slack!" he pleads into the receiver, struggling to keep the unadulterated pain from his voice.

His eyes suddenly alight on the chrome metal of the case delivered from Bones' bank in Iowa. It holds stacks of bills like something out of a bad Mafia movie; every single penny of Bones' savings.

There is a pregnant pause, then Kirk's voice returns, relaxed, like he's chatting about his weekend plans.

"I'll show you his blood".

It's not even spoken as a threat, and perhaps that's even more terrifying to McCoy. The doctor squeezes his eyes shut to blot out the sudden mental image of a lake of green (hobgoblin) blood.

There is a beep from one of the machines closest to Bones. He hears an officer mummer that Kirk has abandoned the frequency, that he is gone.

Bones has bitten his tongue, and he tastes copper in full force.

_A million dollars… _

"So _this_ is the price of love?" he screams down the dead line.

•

It's been a week, the longest of McCoy's life.

More officials than Bones has ever seen have congregated at the space station, filling its crowded hallways with red.

When Bones thinks (which is rarely, now, operating solely on cups of coffee piled high with sugar) it occurs to him the uniforms might be foreshadowing bloodshed.

This only contributes to his sleeplessness.

At any rate, he's sat through enough exhausting trials to know Starfleet isn't going to fund the ransom. The popular agreement among high ranking officers is that a million dollars is a waste of taxpayers' money and Starfleet cannot foot the bill just because Spock is one of their own; Pike tells him with a bitter sneer "it would be unethical".

Bones has stopped fighting it. They're a bunch of cheap bastards and Starfleet is simply covering its own ass; as soon as they pay once, every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a kidnapped lover would emerge from the woodwork and come begging.

Don't take it personally, he's told, it's only business.  
•

He hopes, though, that he's going to be okay.

Spock is certainly not, but McCoy is going to be the one left standing when the dusts settles and even though he's not felt anything as of late, he knows he's going to eventually and he hopes it won't kill him.

Then again, he thinks, perhaps death _would_ be a more favorable outcome.  
•

For the last hour or so, he's been in his quarters, perched at the far end of his bunk, photo of Spock held loosely in his hand.

Bones had always been a religious man; it came with growing up in the south of Iowa, where Jesus was as common and plentiful as the corn. Still, he never had quite the intensity of faith his brothers and sisters did. He saw too much mindless death and pain working in the ER for that.

But Spock, Spock makes him believe. He's never loved another creature the way he-

(_Bones remembers his vows at the altar, "When I stare in your eyes", he'd whispered "I see the image of god" and Spock's lips had turned up at the corners_.)

-Bones finally breaks into sobs and weeps until Uhura comes on com, pity thickening her voice, and tells him he's needed.

•

Everyone is assembled in the space station's cafeteria. The tables have been cleared out and replaced with different tables (perhaps these were more suitable for hostage negotiations, McCoy didn't know and he rather thought it was quite unnecessary) full of a multitude of machinery.

There are huge bay-like windows on all four walls and the combined effect of the vast cafeteria and the faint twinkle of stars in space make Bones feel very much alone.

•

He's standing next to a very kind navigator named Chekov who's been chatting him up (Bones is pretty sure) and he can't help but like the boy even in the face of his complete social ineptitude.

Chekov's hand has somehow made its way onto McCoy's shoulder when two men hurry over and shoo the 17 year-old away. They hook McCoy up to another ancient radio receiver and sign cryptic things with their hands at each other until McCoy shouts at them to speak English, dammit.

The two men exchange a glance and inform him that they were _only_ trying to tell him to get ready and don't take your anger out on us, sir-

A senior officer holds up a wizened hand and the room falls silent. McCoy finds himself griping the seat of his chair so tightly his knuckles go white.

Bones shuts his eyes for a moment and tries to transmit thoughts to Spock, begging him to listen out for his call and dear god, for once in his Vulcan life, to pray for a metaphorical flood.

When Bones dares look again, the officer extends three fingers, and then puts one down, then another, and finally the last digit curls back into his fist.

The call goes through at a quarter past nine in the evening.

The largest monitor in the room is filled with Kirk's face and chest; Spock is nearly off-screen, bound ropes in the corner of the room. Bones fastens his eyes on his husband.

"I've done all I can, "McCoy says simply.

There's a shrug in Kirk's voice when he speaks.

"You win some, you lose some" he sounds very calm, almost regretful, even. "I feel bad for you, man".

•

Kirk slams down the phone (ending the live feed as well) and retrieves his woolen coat from the bed.

From Spock's vantage point, tied to the chair as he is, the Vulcan questions "What happens now?"  
Kirk frowns slightly and tosses the coat over one muscled shoulder.

"Well," he says slowly, contemplating, "To your husband, you're dead."

The hair on the back of Spock's neck twitches and he beats the down the feeling of faint alarm that creeps into his chest.

"I love you" he states, almost pleadingly.

(_"It's better than divorce", Kirk had said, smiling like a shark. "You don't have to deal with crybaby Leo anymore and we get off with a crap load of other sucker's money". And it had made sense, too, in Spock's twisted mind. Kirk had a brilliant way of sucking even the most logical of individuals deep inside his own insanity, deadly like quicksand.) _

Kirk is fiddling with the remote for the explosives by the door and he's made no move to untie Spock.

Something within the Vulcan snaps, and he knows deep inside that Kirk had always planned it this way. There was no retiring to sun kissed beaches for the two of them. Spock had given Kirk his heart and he was going to leave it pumping bloodily on the floor to die.

(_Married life, sleepy Sunday mornings with Leonard, laughter, the flash of his wedding band on his slim pale finger…)_

He cannot go back.

Spock hears the beep of a timer being set and thumps of combat boots as Kirk walks out of the room. (Kirk likes to dress with style; he seems to think this means wearing as much black as possible. )

"See you around!" Kirk shouts as he makes his way through the white, curving hallways to his waiting escape pod.

Spock, hands staining against the ropes around his wrists, thinks of McCoy's idioms, "Give me some slack!" he intones to the empty room.

Kirk straps himself in, seatbelt pulling against his chest and flips the ignition. The ship drops a heavy steel door over the opening to the pod and he hits the throttle, pulling gently away. Such self-satisfaction rises in his chest that he cannot suppress a delighted cackle of laughter.

Kirk likes it, he really does. Hurting people has genuinely become his favorite pastime. Good thing he's _so_ talented at it too.

He navigates the pod around the side of the ship until he's next to the window of the tiny bedroom. He can see Spock quite clearly through the glass.

Kirk presses the intercom close to his mouth and his voice fills the ship, bouncing down the hallways to slam full force into Spock's ears.

"There's no hope, but, babe" he mocks "You can wait for that dove".

He cannot hear the noise but he can tell Spock is screaming; he's very good at lip reading.

"_So this is the price of love_?"

Once he's a good distance away from the ship, Kirk presses the detonate button and watches Spock go up in smoke.

He decides he'd quite like a glass of wine.

•

A female officer looks up from her station, face utterly pale.

"Sir," she stammers to the elder official, "We've got a lock on Mr. Spock's location. Someone sent us a video feed as well. It's, of course, untraceable."

McCoy's stomach clenches as the woman brings the image of an exploding ship up on the large monitor in front of him.

Bones is aware of a falling sensation; he can just make out a figure in the window of the ship, a figure with a very recognizable bowl cut.

Just before McCoy passes out, he realizes he can no longer remember how much he paid for their engagement rings.

•

Kirk leans back in the pilot's chair, the black of space rushing in the windshield. He takes measured sips of the red wine and imagines he can see Dr McCoy's horrified, anguished face from miles away.

Kirk smirks and toasts the air. "To the price of love" he says.

•

_**Reviews are love, flames are for toasting marshmallows!**_


End file.
